Comme d'autres
esprits.
For symphony orchestra. A sonic fresco after Baudelaire — exoticism, perfumes, journey of the spirit — in memoriam Robert Wangermée. Commissioned by Festival Ars Musica for its 30th anniversary.
From Baudelaire to Wagner.
At the origin of Comme d'autres esprits lay a commission from Bruno Letort for the 30th anniversary of Festival Ars Musica (2019): write an introduction to Henri Dutilleux's Tout un monde lointain, a composer Mernier deeply admires. But admiration paralyses. The project drifts, and the composer steps away from Dutilleux to reach the source of the concerto — La Chevelure by Charles Baudelaire.
The title is a verse drawn two stanzas further than the one chosen by Dutilleux, like an answer:
Live in your depths, aromatic forest!
As other spirits sail upon music,
Mine, oh my love! swims upon your perfume. — Charles Baudelaire, La Chevelure (transl.)
The work belongs to Mernier's Baudelairean cycle — exoticism, eroticism, love, inner journey — also running through his earlier piece for voice and piano Un hémisphère dans une chevelure, from which it borrows material. The score thus proceeds by reminiscence and drift rather than by programme.
Another presence surfaces: "two bars from the prelude to Act III of Tristan" — a conscious yet unpremeditated quotation Mernier discovers had come on its own, so closely are Wagner and Baudelaire's worlds intertwined. The orchestral fresco thus assumes its weave: Baudelaire at its core, Dutilleux on the horizon, Wagner in the watermark, the whole dedicated to the memory of a tutelary figure of music in French-speaking Belgium — Robert Wangermée.
After a series of concertos for piano, violin and organ, Mernier here returns to the orchestra alone, without a soloist — a gesture he describes as a liberation: "one is more concentrated on that immensely rich instrument that is the orchestra, and no doubt freer to make it sound fully".
Winds: 3.3.3.3 (3 flutes · 3 oboes · 3 clarinets · 3 bassoons)
Brass: 4.2.2.1 (4 horns · 2 trumpets · 2 trombones · 1 tuba)
Percussion: timpani · 3 percussionists
Harp · Celesta
Strings: 14.12.10.8.6
The work was premiered on 17 November 2019 at the Salle philharmonique de Liège by the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège conducted by Gergely Madaras, then performed again on 22 November 2019 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles. It is now recorded by the same performers for the monographic album Ustica released by Cypres in May 2026.
With Sur un ciel immense
In 2025, Benoît Mernier composed Sur un ciel immense, a score for symphony orchestra commissioned by the OPRL and dedicated to the memory of Philippe Boesmans. Together, the two works form a cycle entitled Deux mouvements symphoniques. Four years separate the two compositions, but the same Baudelairean grammar binds them — La Chevelure for Comme d'autres esprits, Un hémisphère dans une chevelure for Sur un ciel immense. The two pieces share an identical scoring and may be performed as a cycle or independently.
▸ Discover Sur un ciel immenseAn orchestral score.
Comme d'autres esprits is published by XXI Music Publishing. Conductor's score and rental material (parts) available from our editorial service.
Score
symphony orchestra
Conductor's score + rental material (parts).
Music · © Benoît Mernier / XXI Music Publishing. Work dedicated to the memory of Robert Wangermée. Commissioned by Festival Ars Musica.
The album Ustica.
The monographic album Ustica, released by Cypres in May 2026, gathers several recent works by Benoît Mernier published by XXI Music Publishing. Comme d'autres esprits appears alongside Sur un ciel immense, Offering, Ustica and the Deux poèmes for violin and piano.
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